Erika McConnell

Rainforest Farms, Juneau's first legal marijuana retailer, was turned away late last month by the U.S Postal Service when one of its owners attempted to mail a regularly scheduled tax payment to Anchorage. Anchorage is the only place in the state equipped to take cash deposits.

“Any proceeds from the selling of (marijuana) is considered drug proceeds under federal law, so you can’t mail that,” Postal inspector Aaron Behnen told the Empire from Anchorage.

Ken Alper, Alaska Department of Revenue Tax Division Director, said in an interview that the state needs to find a way for “these legitimate businesspeople to pay their taxes. We thought we had done that, and this throws a tremendous wrinkle into our processes.”

Even though eight states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington) and Washington, D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana, cannabis businesses remain mostly locked out of the banking system.

Marijuana is still illegal federally, so any business that deals with it is in violation of federal law. The U.S. Department of Justice stated in a 2013 memo that it would not interfere with states that have legalized marijuana, but that policy could change at any time.

The Alaska Marijuana Control Board was expected to consider recently whether to move forward with proposed rules allowing marijuana customers to consume their purchases on site, something no other state with legalized recreational has yet allowed. However, discussions about onsite marijuana consumption have been delayed until next month by Alaska marijuana regulators.

Kim Kole, Owner/Founder of Raspberry Roots, has been very active in following the roll out of this policy, and explained that the Board had to delay the discussion and creation of onsite consumption regulations because there were so many potential licenses to be approved on the 2 day agenda.

“Unlike Colorado and Oregon, Alaska is starting this industry from scratch, so we didn’t have any cultivations, manufacturers, or retails established. This, coupled with onerous regulations in the municipality of Anchorage (by far the largest city) is why our roll out has been particularly slow. Demand far exceeds supply, so it’s imperative for the viability of the industry to get as many cultivators up and running before our tourist season starts in a couple of months. The Board did approve an additional meeting in May to address more cultivations and onsite regulations in time for the influx of people this summer.”